


need to know if you're just a friend, are you a secret i'm holding in

by themuses



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Confessions, Fix-It, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 14:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18317534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themuses/pseuds/themuses
Summary: Cyrus gets an unexpected visitor after dinner and it's pouring down rain.





	need to know if you're just a friend, are you a secret i'm holding in

**Author's Note:**

> hi i literally haven't written a fic in forever but these boys give me a lot of emotions ok

Cyrus is in the middle of putting away the dishes from the dishwasher, with the rain as a background noise, when there's a knock at the door.

At first, he isn't sure if he imagined it. But when he looks through the peephole, he sighs. There's the one person he isn't quite wanting to see right now. But, he can't leave the boy standing on his porch soaked, can he now?

So instead he whips his front door open to a very wet TJ. “What do you think you're doing? It's dark! And it's pouring outside!”

“I had to see you.” TJ said. Not really an explanation.

Cyrus is slightly exasperated. He lifts his hand and points it around, “Now? When it's 8pm and raining cats and dogs out there?”

TJ isn't even swayed. “Right now.”

Cyrus waves him inside. “Stay on the matt for a minute. I'll be _right_ back.” He points an accusatory finger in TJ's direction.

Cyrus heads up to his bedroom for clothes that TJ had left behind, or anything that would happen to fit him. He ends up finding a pair of TJ's sweats and a sweatshirt he thinks he stole from TJ at one point.

TJ hasn't left by time he comes back and Cyrus didn't even know he was worried he'd leave.

Or cared he would.

He chucks the clothes at TJ, who manages to catch them with no warning. TJ looks at them curiously for a second, then looks up at Cyrus.

“Thanks.”

“Go change. You know where the bathroom is.”

TJ ducks his head and moves past him, without bumping their shoulders together, or ruffling Cyrus’ hair, or squeezing his shoulder. Which is what he'd usually do.

Cyrus feels like there's a rock in the bottom of his stomach.

TJ is here because he found out that Cyrus is gay. That Cyrus has a huge crush on him. TJ bailed on somersault because he didn't want anyone to assume anything about them. TJ is going to tell him they can't be⎯  

The door clicks back open, snapping him out of his thoughts and TJ reemerges in dry clothes. His hair though, it's plastered to his forehead and Cyrus’ stomach is now home to butterflies _as well_ as that rock.

And TJ, well, he still won't look at him either. When he comes back in the kitchen, he sits down at the table and looks down at his entwined fingers.

Cyrus is a kind of frustrated. TJ came all the way here and in the rain to see him, as he said, but won't talk or look at him?

“TJ.”

“Yeah?”

“You going to tell me what was so important you rushed all the way here at 8 in the rain?”

TJ looks up at him for a second, then back down at his fingers. “I-I will. I'm just scared.”

And, well⎯  of course Cyrus softens. He softens for this boy that's his best friend before anything else. “Teej. It's me. You can tell me anything.”

There, TJ finally, _finally_ looks up at him. He feels like he can breathe.

“Anything? You won't hate me, no matter what?” Cyrus thinks he can see relief in TJ's eyes.

Cyrus takes the seat across from him. “Of course not. I could never hate you.”

“But you're mad at me.”

“There's a difference between mad and hate. Plus, I'm just a little mad, more disappointed.”

TJ lets out a shaky breath. “Oh.”

Cyrus isn't sure how to respond to that. How did TJ turn into the one being comforted here?

“I do want to explain what happened on Costume Day, though,” TJ taps his fingers against the table, looks up at Cyrus, right into his eyes. “I'm so sorry. Kira, she guessed some… _things_ about me. Things that I hadn't quite come to terms with. Things that I'm sure of now. Things that I'm still kind of scared of people knowing. But I need to tell you for things with you to be okay, so I can't keep hiding. I can't handle not being friends with you. My life has been so much better since knowing you. It's been so ha⎯ “

Cyrus cuts him off, grabbing his wrist gently, “TJ. Teej, you gotta slow down. I don't understand.”

TJ breathes in and out slowly. Lowers his eyes from Cyrus’ gaze. Says all in one breath, “I'mgay. Pleasedon'thateme.”

“TJ, of course I don't hate you. Thank you for telling me. But… what does that have to do with…?”

TJ looks up at him this time, with surprise in his eyes. Like he's shocked Cyrus hasn't run off in disgust. Then he looks down at his wrist where Cyrus is still touching him. Cyrus goes to pull his hand away but before he can TJ covers it with his own.

“Kira saw how I looked at you that day. She said to me ‘ _So you'd rather do a costume with_ Cyrus _than with_ me? _’_ . The way she said it… She made it sound so horrible⎯  vile. That I wanted to do the costume with you and not a girl. That I was a guy, who likes guys. It really messed with my brain. I was already trying to come to terms with the whole _I'm gay_ thing. And then she…”

Cyrus’ heart broke in tiny pieces hearing TJ recount how horrible she was to him.

“TJ… I'm so sorry… she's a bully and please, don't listen to her. There is nothing wrong with you.”

TJ's mouth quirks a bit. “I feel like we've had this conversation before.”

“I have said that line before, haven't I?” It almost seems like a lifetime ago. At that basketball game, before they were best friends, before TJ had really opened up.

“You have.”

“But I'm right. This time, just like last.”

“You are, you almost always are.” Cyrus smiles this time, big and bright. TJ smiles back, like Cyrus’ smile is contagious. (Maybe it is.)

TJ breaks the smile-staring contest. “You did hear all of what I said, right?”

“I mean I think I got everything. You're gay. And Kira is a homophobic bully.”

“No,” Then Cyrus gives him a look, “Yes I know all that but I mean about the first thing I said?”

“Possibly not.”

“I said: ‘ _Kira saw how I looked at you that day’_. She realized I was gay because of how I looked at you. I like you, Cyrus.”

TJ is looking right into his eyes, TJ's blue meeting his brown. But, Cyrus still doesn't think he heard him right. There's no way TJ Kippen, captain of the basketball team, former scary basketball guy, likes him. This has to be a joke. He's messing with him.

“Cyrus, I understand if you don't like me... or if you aren't even gay but please say something.”

He blurts out, “No, I'm _definitely_ gay.”

Not his best move.

“Cool, cool.”

His crush and best friend likes him?

Cyrus shakes himself a bit. “Sorry, I'm just in shock. Did you say you like me?”

TJ smiles, a real one this time, with his teeth showing and Cyrus feels the butterflies return. “Yes, Cy, I do.”

“Oh okay,” Cyrus starts smiling, he probably looks like an idiot, but he doesn't even care. “I like you too.”

TJ maneuvers their hands so they're intertwined.

“You're going to kill me, Kippen.”

“You don't think you kill me, Goodman?”

He shakes his head and laughs, bodily and full.

“There, right there, I'm dead!”

That just makes him laugh even more. TJ then throws his arm over his head and feigns death.

“Stop being so dramatic. I can't kill my boyfriend minutes into dating him.”

TJ sits up straight. “Oh, boyfriend, huh?”

“Did you just want to be friends?”

TJ shakes his head, smiling wide. “Definitely not.”

Cyrus’ parents eventually drive TJ home⎯  after telling them _both_ how happy they are for them, of course.


End file.
